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07 May 2014

ICYMI: 5 May - 11 May 2014 is International Clitoris Awareness Week

Clitoraid, the nonprofit organization fighting female genital mutilation, is back again celebrating the second annual International Clitoris Awareness Week.

"We invite women worldwide to defend, explore and rejoice in their right to sexual pleasure," said Nadine Gary, Clitoraid spokesperson.

Although Clitoraid focuses on clitoral repair surgery for women suffering effects of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), its central mission is to raise public awareness.

"In some African countries, 98 percent of the women have had their sexual organs mutilated," Gary said. "They will never experience sexual pleasure unless they have the surgery that Clitoraid is offering to do right now for free in Burkina Faso, and soon in many other countries. But there is also a mental mutilation component, one that almost all women worldwide suffer from after being told for centuries that sensuality and sexuality are dirty."

"The clitoris is a magnificent organ that has been ignored, vilified, made taboo, and even considered sinful through antiquated, patriarchal religious teachings," she explained. "It's time to give it the attention it deserves as the only organ with an exclusive sexual pleasure function!"

Gary said it's easy to see why Western women still experience sexual guilt.

"Not that long ago, 'nymphomania' was considered a disease, and masturbation was thought to cause blindness and premature death," she pointed out. Doctors even believed that sexual arousal destroys a woman's mental balance!"

The clitoris, boasting the most nerve endings of any human organ (8,000, against 5,000 in the penis), was declared the source of the purported problems.

"In 1865, the president of the British Medical Society recommended clitoral excision to cure illnesses like epilepsy and hysteria," Gary said." And scientists didn't fully research the clitoris until recently. Dr. Helen O'Connell, an Australian urologist, mapped it completely 8 years ago, using an MRI device."